Hospice trains volunteers to care for inmates
Volunteers give inmates compassion
In Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, there is a scene in which the wife and daughter of a French expatriate, who has been sentenced to the guillotine, pace below a prison window in hopes that he will have a fleeting few seconds to look out and see his loved ones.
That glimpse gives the doomed man courage when hope is pointless.
The Rev. Paul Guoan, a Jackson, MI, Catholic priest, has witnessed a similar scene set in modern times. A 40-year-old man, dying in the Michigan prison, has a grandfather who is an inmate in the same prison complex.
The dying man, to whom Guoan provides volunteer hospice care, has rare opportunities on some days to look out of a prison hospital window and see his grandfather walking in the prison yard below.
The dying prisoner has shared with Guoan some letters his grandfather has written him. This is the only way they are able to communicate with each other. The letters contain poor grammar and misspellings, but they are spiritual treasures that encourage the grandson to be a good person at the end of his life, Guoan notes.
"The grandfather has been in prison all of this man’s life," he says. "And these letters are precious things."
Alleviating fear of death
Guoan provides hospice care to nine dying prisoners. His work is part of an outreach program that the Hospice of Jackson began about 10 years ago.
"It was an effort to reach out to the prisons through our volunteers," says Michael Freytag, MA, LPC, NCC, executive director of the hospice, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Cascade Health System, also based in Jackson.
The prison contains an acute care hospital that provides health care for the dying inmates. The hospice provides no clinical care. "We send volunteers in to meet the emotional and psychological needs of the terminally ill within the walls of the prison," Freytag says.
Volunteers undergo 20 hours of hospice training and have a special orientation at the prison. The orientation covers the prison’s protocol for coming and leaving and bringing in outside items. Also, volunteers must have inmates sign a release that they will accept a hospice volunteer’s visits.
The volunteer service complements the hospice’s mission to provide a growth experience to people at the end of their lives, Freytag notes.
"The core of what hospice is about is to alleviate the fear, to help bring some understanding, and to help the person find reconciliation within himself."
Staff help forgiveness
Guoan has found that dying inmates first want a chance to vent the anger they’ve carried around since their often abusive childhoods.
"You feel that toxin coming out of them," he says. "They can let go of the hurts of the past and the anger, knowing [they’re] not going anywhere with it."
The men often blame their families, friends, and even the governor for their problems, he notes. Eventually, some inmates begin to acknowledge their responsibility and how they have victimized others.
Also, the men initially want Guoan to help them with their legal appeals. However, Guoan makes it clear to them he is there only for their spiritual well being. He says that despite his clerical collar, he sometimes must make several visits before inmates trust him.
Once the dying men exhaust the litany of their pains and complaints, Guoan tries to steer them to the positive aspects of their lives, without dwelling on what brought them to prison. He also offers them an opportunity to ask for forgiveness, and reassures them that anyone who wants reconciliation with God may have it, and the past is forgiven.
"Once they know they’ve been forgiven, it gives them a whole different kind of hope," Guoan says. "When I come in to visit, we’re past the anger and the fear. It’s just like a friend coming to visit."
Sometimes the men ask him to read them the Bible, or they may entrust him with their last belongings.
One man wore a Catholic scapular, which has pictures for spiritual inspiration. The night the man was dying, he asked Guoan for a favor: "Father, will you keep this? They’ll just throw it away after I die."
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